Why features dont matter anymore - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Why features dont matter anymore - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog The success of the Apple iPod should serve us all as a reminder of this fact: Simple is good. And in case we forget, theres this excellent article by Andreas Pfeiffer who formulates it very succinctly using 10 simple rules. Here are some examples: 10 fundamental rules for the age of user experience technology: 1) More features isnt better, its worse. Feature overload is becoming a real issue. The last thing a customer wants is confusion-and whats more confusing than comparing technical specifications, unless you are en expert? Only nerds get a kick out of reading feature lists. (I know Im one of them.) 2) You cant make things easier by adding to them. Simplicity means getting something done in a minimum number of simple steps. Practically anything could be simpler but you dont get there by adding features. 3) Confusion is the ultimate deal-breaker. Confuse a customer, and you lose him. And nothing confuses more easily than complex features and unintuitive functionalities. Which reminds me of the time Mark Twain wrote a letter saying: I apologize for writing you a long letter but I didnt have time to write a short one. And then theres this wonderful quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. And that is what we must seek in business: We must seek complexity and then try to discover the simplicity beyond complexity. If you only know enough about your product to present it in a complicated way one that makes everybody think you must be really clever then youre not ready to sell it. When you can present it in a way that makes everybody realize theyre as clever as you are, then youre good to go. And thats when you can create breakaway hits like the iPod. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related